How to kill pre-season optimism in 60 minutes Well that was a lot of fun wasn’t it, 8 months of waiting only to see the Bucs lay possibly the biggest home opening goose egg in their history. What could go wrong, did go wrong, and catastrophically too in most areas and we are left to pick over the remains of a game that showcased all our fears about a feeble offensive line and aging defense. When teams are shut-out the natural tendency is to lay the blame at the quarterback’s door; granted Chris Simms display was horseshit last Sunday, but some consideration should also be given to the vanilla offensive line in front of him, which meant he had zero chance to step up into a decent pocket all day, or utilise any serious running threat whatsoever. Mr Simms main problem currently is the batted passes - either he is a frustrated volleyball player at heart, or enjoyed the funfair in his younger days and feels he has to try to knock down any lineman’s hand that comes into his field of vision. Joking aside the batted passes happen too often for it to be an accident and something needs to change here and fast too, otherwise Chris will be following a different career path sooner than he expected. A few things I think 1. Positive note of the week – at least we are not The Raiders. They managed to make us look good and that was some feat in itself. 2. I think another reason to be cheerful is having a laugh at The Twits (Superbowl Favourites and all) showing last Sunday. Not at all a one man team without Mr Smith are you? 3. Calling Joey Galloway – hello, are you out there? I swear I saw you listed as a starter on our offense. # 4. I DON’T think Bruce Gradkowski should start for the Bucs this week, not now, not next week, not this season . . . . period. I think I listened with interest to Chris McAllister’s comments on his interception return, especially when he stated he could see Simms locked on Doug Jolley and reacted when the deep pass was well underthrown. It did make me think, why the hell are we throwing the ball 30 yards down the field to Doug effing Jolley at all? He’s a waiver wire pick-up in the last week before the season, and there are far better targets for a long ball pass, Galloway, Clayton, Stovall, Alex Smith and Pittman to name but five of them. Please god don’t say Chucky has gone back to his ex-Raiders obsession again. We’ve signed umpteen of them, Garner, Stinchcomb, Tim Brown etc and they’ve all been garbage. Am I the only one who doesn’t see Jolley as a pick-up we needed to make? 5. Easiest job in the world last Sunday? Matt Bryant. One kick-off to make and then the final 59 minutes and 50 secs sat on your arse in the Florida sunshine - easy money. Thank god he’s not on my fantasy team, oh wait ……he is, bollocks. 6. I think I am beginning to fear the injury to Davin Joseph is a hell of a lot more serious than the Bucs are letting on. Make no mistake though he’s a rookie the absence of this man mountain is killing us, and Gruden right now. Lets hope he’s in uniform some time though from what I hear, I doubt that will be before Halloween at the earliest. 7. I see Chucky has stated he is tired of talking about the batted balls problem for his offense. Well Jon, if you cut the f*****s out and make sure forward passes can safely navigate the line of scrimmage once in a while, then we won’t mention them. Even $hite quarterbacks like Vinny or miniature ones like Flutie managed it so surely we can do the same. Thanks, Lee (Manchester, UK. 8. I think Id like to wish our Editor and his family a safe and enjoyable trip to the Tampa area this next fortnight, enjoy Paul. By the way if do find a “Pi$$ on the Panthers” T-shirt anywhere you know who’d like to own one don’t you. It’s a problem that is rectifiable and there are a number of ways to counteract this with immediate effect. Though I’m a man of limited football intellect on the X’s and O’s side of things, may I be so bold as to suggest that Simms can throw a few more out, screen or swing passes, he can take deeper five step drops, roll out and throw on the run or even used the good old favourite the pump fake in order to lower the number of deflected and batted passes that are just killing our offense at present. I’ll leave the mechanics stuff to Paul Hackett and Chucky but surely one or two of the above measure won’t go amiss this Sunday? It’s also never a good indicator when your defense allows the opening drive of the year to go the full length of the field and chew off seven minutes of the clock. I don’t buy Simeon Rice’s explanation that they just weren’t ready for the Ravens intensity either, if you can’t be ready on opening day what the hell does that say about your unit? Our defense is the pride of this team and if this starts to slip we are in the brown smelly stuff to some tune. Ill be looking for a response this weekend against Michael Vick, a player we have traditionally done well against, so this Sunday should tell us a lot more about the current direction of a beloved defense. So now it’s off to Atlanta we go for a crunch divisional game with zero momentum to take with us, and if we don’t make serious adjustments and raise the level of play by about 1,000% then this could go downhill very quickly a la 2004. I hope for better this week, I expect better this week, jesus I think we all demand some kind of improvement this week - scoring a point or two would be a start – but lets hope we can be competitive, lay last weeks demons to rest and actually start this NFL Season. Can we win this game, certainly! Will we win this game? Probably not. Much as Id like to believe in a Phoenix-from-the-Flames style renaissance from the Bucs this weekend, I just don’t see it. Things were so wrong last week, that even a major improvement may not take us far enough. If we get behind early we will be in trouble again as our offense is just not built to get involved in shootouts. Falcons to sadly prevail 27-17 – lets hope this proves as accurate as last weeks effort! Nod of Acknowledgement to - My laptop. Thanks to its complete crash last Saturday morning it spared me wasting 3 hours of my life listening to the Bucs getting bum-loved last Sunday. Maybe the device knew something and wanted to spare me the pain – whatever the reason for the malfunction I am truly grateful Sports News Story I No Longer Give a Toss About – The Cowboys kicking woes. You know the script, for the past 15 years the cowboys have had a poor kicking game, cue “Cowboys sign Vanderjagt,” “Vanderjagt feuds with Parcells,” “Vanderjagt injured,” “Will Vanderjagt play this week,” blah blah blah yawn. Nobody gives a Donald Duck anymore and we (well me anyway) are sick to death of this perpetual sob story. Get in the Real World Award - Brett Favre. His Pre-season announcement that this was as talented a Packers team as he had ever been on made 99% of the football world chuckle. Last Sundays thorough ass-kicking at home by The Bears gave Brett and his “great” Packers squad a cold hard dose of reality. Cheer up Brett, there’s only 15 more weeks for this talent laden to play.